I have been there. I've attempted suicide. I help people who are suicidal.
I blog about suicide awareness while battling my own demons. I always say that some of the best people to help suicidal people are suicidal people.
You are never alone. This is your sanctuary.
Death is not the answer.
Not one more life lost to suicide.
Not one....

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Leander High School Suicide, TEXAS

As her classmates walked the hallways, a 15 year old Texas high school freshman brought a gun to school on Monday morning and committed suicide. No other students were present when she fired the fatal shot.

Chubbuck spoke to her family at length about her struggles with depression and suicidal tendencies, though she did not inform them of her specific intent beforehand. She had attempted to overdose on medication in 1970 and frequently made reference to the event. She had also been seeing a psychiatrist up until several weeks before her death. Chubbuck's mother chose not to tell station management of her daughter's suicidal tendencies because she feared that she would be fired as a result.[6]

A week before her suicide she told Rob Smith, the night news editor, that she had bought a gun and joked about killing herself on air. Smith later told the Washington Post that he had chided her for the comment.[2]

On July 12, 1974, she had an argument with news director Mike Simmons after he cut one of her stories to cover a shoot-out instead. Robert Nelson, the station owner, had tried to convince staff to concentrate on "blood and guts".

On the morning of July 15, 1974, Chubbuck confused co-workers by claiming that she had to read a newscast to open her program, Suncoast Digest, something she had never done before. That morning's talk show guest waited across the studio while she sat at the news anchor's desk.[2] Her news copy actually contained a speculative report of her impending suicide, wherein she conjectured she would be declared dead eleven hours later. She placed a .38 revolver in her bag of puppets and put it beneath her desk.

During the first eight minutes of her program, Chubbuck covered three national news stories and then a local restaurant shooting from the day before. The restaurant was the Beef and Bottle Restaurant at the Sarasota-Bradenton Airport on U.S. 41.[9] The filmreel of the restaurant shooting had jammed and would not run, so Chubbuck shrugged it off and said:

"In keeping with Channel 40's policy of bringing you the latest in blood and guts, and in living color, you are going to see another first — attempted suicide."

She drew the revolver and shot herself behind her right ear.[2] Chubbuck fell forward violently and the technical director faded slowly to black.[10] Camera operator Jean Reed later recalled that she thought it had been an elaborate prank, and that it was not until she saw Chubbuck's twitching body that she realized it was genuine.

The station quickly ran a standard public service announcement and then a movie.[11] Some television viewers called the police, while others called the station to inquire if the shooting was faked.[12]

“

She had written something like 'TV 40 news personality Christine Chubbuck shot herself in a live broadcast this morning on a Channel 40 talk program. She was rushed to Sarasota Memorial Hospital, where she remains in critical condition.'

After the shooting, news director Mike Simmons found that the papers from which Chubbuck had been reading her newscast contained a complete script of her program, including not only the shooting, but also a third-person account to be read by whatever staff member took over the broadcast after the incident. He said that her script called for her condition to be listed as "critical."[11]

Chubbuck was taken to Sarasota Memorial Hospital, as her script had predicted; there, she was pronounced dead 14 hours later. Upon receiving the news, a WXLT staffer released the information to other stations using Chubbuck's script.[12]